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The question of the relationship of altruism to volunteerism and to volunteers is a huge topic on which one could write several volumes. Hence, this brief overview of the problem must be viewed as an attempt to sketch some major perspectives and lines of further inquiry, not as an attempt to settle the central question involved. To begin with, the present question involves to a substantial extent matters of definition. Where definitions are concerned, because they are matters of sociocultural custom or convention, arguments tend to be endless and heat tends to far exceed light in these debates.

The present question also relates closely to a number of crucial ethical, philosophical, and theological issues, hence making the stance of many otherwise reasonable individuals already hardened in terms of &dquo; received doctrines&dquo; and their minds closed to the possibility of better, more fruitful, more use-ful, more clear …